For the control of a transmission of a vehicle drive-train of a working machine, it is essential to know the driving situation of the working machine. If the driving situation is known, then with this knowledge the control strategy can be adapted. For example, in mobile construction machines frequently recurring production cycles are used. Since particular driving situations often recur after a certain time, it is for example sought to implement measures in the control strategy that aim to reduce fuel consumption, such as operating the engine in a consumption-optimized condition of the engine performance characteristic or, alternatively, reducing the engine speed, or suchlike.
Since important information for controlling the transmission of a working machine, such as the loading condition of the scoop of a wheel loader, is not available, it is sought to determine such information on the basis of values of operating variables in such transmissions established by measurement techniques. For that purpose it is usual to assign driving conditions of working machines to categories in which the values determined are differentiated and classified by specialists. In order to be able to classify working machine transmission values determined during the operation of the working machine, with a view to determining a current operating condition with the high reliability desired, the values determined are assigned to the categories with the help of a separation line or by means of a separation characteristic stored in the control unit. If the measured value lies above the separation line, then it belongs to a category for example associated with a loaded condition of a scoop of the working machine such as a wheel loader. But if the value lies below the separation line, then for example this corresponds to a driving condition of the working machine when its scoop is unloaded.
In such so-termed separation problems, in practice it is customary to use performance graphs or characteristics determined empirically by application engineers.
In this context the indicators or features with reference to which the current driving condition is deduced are not known a priori. Furthermore, the quality of the separation lines or separation surfaces used in each case is unclear. It is not clear whether the separation line or surface stored has been selected more or less arbitrarily, or whether it is truly the best possible separation line or surface.
Moreover, human users can interpret with ease separation lines up to at most the second dimension. Separation problems with higher dimensions can no longer be dealt with by application engineers to the desired extent, and for that reason an exact classification of information derived from the plethora of transmission-internal data cannot be achieved with sufficient accuracy to enable the current driving condition of a working machine to be described in an optimum manner.